Whites Are New Minority In California

March 30, 2001|By New York Times News Service.

LOS ANGELES — For the first time in the modern era, non-Hispanic whites are officially a minority in California, amounting to a little less than half the population of the most populous state, compared with nearly three-quarters only a decade ago, according to census figures released Thursday. Hispanic residents make up nearly one-third of the state's population.

The change was long expected, the result of high Hispanic birthrates and decades of immigration, but combined with a 43 percent increase in the state's Asian population, it confirmed California's status as the nation's most diverse populous state and was viewed as a harbinger of changes in other big states such as Florida, Texas and New York.

California remains by far the most populous state, home to nearly 1 in 8 Americans, and its highest rates of population growth came in the inland valleys least associated with swimming pools and movie stars. The fastest-growing county was Placer, the picturesque enclave in the Sierra Nevada foothills northeast of Sacramento that was the scene of the state's Gold Rush in 1849. It has become a commuter haven, growing 42 percent in the last decade.

The state gained slightly fewer than 3 million people, for a total of 33.9 million, compared with adjusted figures from the 1990 census, a growth rate of a little less than 10 percent. California's growth was more than the populations of about half the states in the union.

More than 43 percent of Californians younger than 18 are Hispanic, compared with about 35 percent a decade ago, the figures show.

"The Anglo hegemony was only an intermittent phase in California's arc of identity, extending from the arrival of the Spanish," said Kevin Starr, the state librarian.